NUMBERS AND SUPERSTITIONS
66
The number 666 is believed by many to be the number of the Beast, the number of Satan. This comes from the last book in the Christian Bible, The Revelation, which says that the letters in the name of the anti-Christ have a numeric value that add to the number 666. As a result, the number 6 is now often taboo, and 66 is bad luck as well. When many southerners say the number "66" in conversation, they automatically append the words "pick up sticks" as a counter to the evil number.
3
The numbe 3 is also a mystic number. The Holy Trinity of Christianity (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) brings a lot of this mystery. Colloquially, we often lump things into threes. Good luck and bad luck often are said to come in three's. Some feel there is some other, more powerful quality of 3. Look at a few of the coincidences:
* Jonah's 3 days in the whale
* Daniel and the 3 lions
* Peter's 3 denials
* Macbeth's 3 witches
* Earth, sea, and sky (3)
* Minerals, vegetables, & animals (3)
* Plant, animal, and protozoa (3)
* Mind, body, and spirit (3)
Those who feel that so much in nature appears in three's seem to ingore the number of things that occur in two's and four's. But, there are also bad things that come in threes. When lighting a cigarette on a match, never, light more than 2 on the same match stick. This, too, is traced to a practical cause, though. In the Korean War, soldiers were told that the amount of time it took to light 3 cigarettes on one match was the amount of time it took a sniper to spot the light, ready a gun, and fire on the smokers.
13
There are some far-fetched explanations about why this number is so unlucky. I had one friend who said that when man learned to count, he used his fingers, counted once for each foot, and stopped there: 12. Beyond that lie the unknown! Whether you believe that or not, 12 became a more populat occurance in society. A dozen hours on the clock is just one of many occurances of a dozen in use today. (Nevermind the baker's dozen (13)).
Many buldings omit the designation of a 13th floor even today. There is a hotel called the Worthington in Ft. Worth, Texas, for instance that has 16 stories in its height, but the elevator does not have a 13th floor stop...it just skips to the 14th floor. Also, many builders will stop at an even dozen steps to a flight of stairs, and not at 13. Perhaps the worst occurance of 13 is Friday the 13th, the most unluck of all days to the superstitious.
8:20
Another, more obscure myth is that of the time 8:20. Abraham Lincoln was said to be shot at 8:20, and thereafter, many Americans thought that this time held some mystic value. Actually, he was shot at 10:10 PM and died at 7:22 AM.
Whenever a group oddly falls silent during causal conversation, check the time; some guarantee it will be near or exactly 20 minutes before or after the hour.
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